Have you taken shots like this before? Blurry images are usually a by-product of taking a shot using your camera’s auto mode, but without using the flash when there is low light (such as when you are indoors or at night).

An even bigger problem for Angela was that she did not know about the blurry images until she uploaded the images to her computer a few days later. She had been using the LCD screen but didn’t realise that because it’s so small, it won’t show if any images are blurry.

Why does the image turn out blurry?

Well, technical reason is that the camera moved while the shutter was open. In low light the shutter needs to be open for longer so the camera gets enough light to properly expose the shot. That’s why holding your camera in your hand works OK in daylight – because they’re more light and the shutter is open for less time.

There is another reason – the image might not be in focus (or the camera has focused on the wrong part of the scene). This is more a problem at night when you can’t see the camera’s focus point as easily.

How do I fix it

While it’s impossible to fix an already blurry image, there are a number of ways to ensure future images are ultra sharp – each with it’s benefits and disadvantages.

1. Turn on the flash! Modern cameras warn you if they think a flash should be used – usually by flashing a hand symbol (which basically says you’ll get a blurry image if you take the shot while holding the camera in your hand). A flash will provide enough light for the camera to use a quick shutter speed and stop the blurriness. The disadvantage of using a flash is the flash light ‘dies away’ quickly, so only the subjects close to the camera are fully lit. The background will be very dark.

2. Use a tripod. This will steady the camera while the shutter is open. When shooting people, you also need to ask them to be still while the shutter is open. You also need to be aware that your finger depressing the shutter button will shake the camera, so you should use either the timer, or a remote trigger, so the camera is still when the shot is taken. This method works well when you want to take shots of inanimate objects, but not so well when taking shots of people, such as in this photo.

3. Use “Shutter Priority Mode”. Some of the more expensive cameras have a shutter priority mode that you can use to override the camera’s default shutter settings. Using this mode, increase the shutter speed as far as you can go. The camera will compensate by opening the aperture more (to let in more light) and also increasing the ISO value (so the camera needs less overall light to get an acceptable image). If you use this method, your images may turn out to be too dark, so either take a few shots at different shutter speeds, or increase the EV level to brighten the image. This method also tends to increase the ‘noise’ in the image.

I also recommend practicing. Practice taking some more indoors shots using each of the tips above. Make a note of which settings you used for which shots, and then check the images on your computer. Note which ones turned out best and use those settings next time you need to take shots in that situation.

Learning how your camera works beforehand can go a long way to ensure photos of your special occasions don’t end up in the digital dustbin.

Other relevent tips: Alternatives to a Tripod, Advanced Modes

What do you put in your camera bag? I place my camera, spare batteries and memory cards, a cleaning kit and any extra lenses or filters I want to take on the day into my camera bag.

Don’t pack everything in your camera bag every time you go out to take photos. Travel as light as possible. Maybe purchase two camera bags – a large camera case and a smaller camera bag for those ‘pack light’ times. Clean your camera bag occasionally. Dust can accumulate and could cause problems with your camera and equipment by accumulating on your lens.

Keep your camera away from luggage handlers! Most airlines allow one carry-on PLUS a personal item. A camera bag usually qualifies as your personal item.

What kinds of camera bags are there?

A weatherproof top loading shoulder camera bag is the best and most versatile option, because you can place the camera case on the ground and open the lid to retrieve your equipment.

The size of camera bag you purchase will depend on the size of your digital camera. If you have a larger camera with lots of accessories, consider purchasing a larger camera bag that has wheels. The wheels allow you to take your bag with you easily rather than lugging it around over your shoulder. Some bags with wheels can double as backpacks for when you’re hiking.

If your digital camera is a small pocket model, a fanny pack for just your camera will work really well. Keep the pack over your stomach (rather than your lower back) if you’re concerned about theft.

Purchasing a camera bag

When purchasing a new camera case, it’s important to note the following:

• Avoid brand name camera bags. If you have a more expensive camera, try to purchase a camera bag that does not LOOK like a camera bag. Thieves are always on the lookout for bags that look like they contain valuable equipment and nothing says ‘valuable inside’ more than a camera case with a camera maker’s brand plastered all around the outside. Purchase a camera case that’s a little less conspicuous – they’re usually less expensive as well.
• Think of the accessories you’ll place in a camera bag before purchasing. Do you have any other equipment (such as a card reader) you might want to take with your camera? What about accessories you are thinking about purchasing in the near future?
• A camera bag with moveable padded inserts will be more versatile than one without because you can customize the inside of the camera bag to your particular camera and accessories.
• Buy a camera case with lots of pockets and zippered compartments. This way, you can store used digital camera batteries in one pocket and unused batteries in another. The same with your memory cards… I label my pockets with labels like “Batteries – Used” so I can quickly find the correct pocket while out and about.
• Watch out for the prices of camera cases (and other accessories) when purchasing a camera case at the same time as your camera. Many retailers lower the price of their cameras to compete, and increase their accessory prices to compensate.

I personally use a small camera bag (that just fits my camera) and place that inside my backpack. That way, I have an extra level of protection from theft when I’m not using my camera, but can carry the camera bag outside my backpack when I’m shooting.

• LCD Screen. This is by far the most power thirsty feature in digital cameras. You can turn the screen off to conserve power, but I don’t recommend this because the screen is very useful to determine if you have taken a great shot.
• Flash. Another big power user. The flash uses lots of battery as it’s charging, so minimize usage.
• Zooming in and out also uses battery power to drive the motor. Refrain from changing your zoom too much. I recommend staying close to full optical zoom.

Make your batteries last longer

Given the two biggest power users on your camera are the LCD screen and Flash, there are ways to reduce the usage of these. If your camera allows you to, reduce the brightness of the screen to get more time from your battery. This will still allow you to see your photo, but it won’t use as much power.

How do you minimize usage of the flash? Try doing without the flash when you’re in low light by increasing the light around you. Or increase the “ISO Speed”. The higher the ISO setting, the less light is needed to record the image.

Other secrets for making your batteries last longer:

• Most digital cameras have a Power Saving mode. This ‘shuts down’ the camera – not switch off – after a period of time without use. Make sure Power Saving mode is on, or simply switch off your camera when you’re not using it.
• In cold weather, keep your camera and batteries warm in your jacket until you are ready to use them. Cold weather to batteries is like RAID is to bugs!
• Store batteries in a cool, dry location away from sunlight and other heat sources.
• Avoid unnecessary playback of your already taken images, as this can also use a lot of juice.
• If you haven’t used your camera for a while, your rechargeable batteries will have lost some of their charge. Ensure you charge them fully before leaving the house.

Buy a spare battery

This has two advantages. You can get double the time from of your camera before needing to recharge by using two batteries. If you don’t need an extra battery all the time, you can have one charging at home when you’re using the other. Then when you get home, swap them. Never leave your camera behind again because you don’t have a charged battery.

What kind of battery should I purchase?

You will need to purchase a battery that is compatible with your camera, so I recommend taking your camera’s battery to the shop with you when purchasing so the staff can find another compatible battery. You don’t need to purchase a battery from the same manufacturer as your camera, although be aware that choosing another brand may void your warranty – check your manual.

Go for a rechargeable Lithium ion battery if possible. These battery types have a greater capacity than the rechargeable ni-cad batteries and will pay for themselves in a short period of time.

Use the AC adapter

Most cameras have an adapter to allow you to plug directly into a power point. If you’re going to be shooting for a long period of time in the one location, a camera plugged into a power point can be very handy. Note that some cheaper cameras have the plug for an AC adapter, but not the adapter itself.

What is a memory card?

A memory card is the little removable piece of plastic that your camera uses to store your photos. Memory cards come in different sizes and names such as Compact Flash (CF), Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick (MS), Smart Media (SM) and xD.

Running out of memory on your card is a little like running out of film in a traditional camera. Rather than purchasing a new film to take more shots though, you move your images to your computer or a CD and re-use the same memory card.

Purchasing extra memory cards is a good idea is you’re on a vacation and want to ensure you can store all your photos. Fortunately, prices of memory cards have come down dramatically in recent times.

Purchasing – what do I need to know?

There are two pieces of information you need to know when purchasing a new memory card. What type of card your camera takes, and how large a memory card you wish to buy.

What memory card type does my camera use?

The simplest way to find out the type of memory card your camera uses, is to take your existing card out of the camera and look on it for one of the types listed above. If you’re still not sure, take your existing card into the camera store and ask the staff for a new card with the same type as what you have.

The size of memory card you purchase will depend on your photography needs as well as your budget. Memory cards come in sizes between 512 Megabytes (and will fit between 200 and 1,000 images depending on your camera capabilities and image quality) and 16 Gigabytes (16,000 megabytes – store thousands of images on one of these cards).

My advice is to purchase the largest sized card you can afford. This will allow you to take as many pictures as possible before needing to transfer to a computer or CD. On my last holiday, I took along 16 Gigabyte of memory card storage allowing me to take as many images as I wanted without needing to take my computer along with me to download the images to.

Memory Card Speed

Another feature to keep in the back of your mind when purchasing a new memory card is the card’s speed. The faster your memory card speed, the faster your camera can write its image to the card, and the quicker you can take another photo. The actual speed will be the LOWEST of either your camera’s fastest transfer speed (see your camera’s manual) and the memory card’s speed. If your camera can transfer at 40X speed, but your memory card can only handle 12X, 12X will be the actual transfer speed. Note that some cameras ignore the card’s speed and write as fast as possible all the time.

How many memory cards do I need?

I recommend you have at least two memory cards for your camera. The professionals usually carry 4-6 memory cards and when they run out of memory on one they swap to the next, but unless you’re taking LOTS of photos, that’s overkill. With two cards, you can normally work with one but you have a spare just in case it stops working, you run out space, or you go on a long vacation and need to store more images than you normally would.

Care of cards

Memory cards, although they seem to be small and flimsy, can be quite robust. I’ve dropped one of my cards in a glass of coke and it has survived – although I don’t recommend you do this! It will also depend on the brand of card you purchase. More expensive cards tend to withstand more pounding. Most memory cards will withstand a small amount of misuse, but like any electronic components, take good care of them and they will serve you well.

Other Memory Card Secrets

• If you transfer lots of images to your computer, purchase a card reader. These will allow you to transfer the images to your computer at a much faster rate than using your camera’s connection.
• Contrary to popular opinion, airport x-ray machines will not damage your camera’s memory cards. If you’re really worried, remove them from your bag and ask the screeners to inspect manually.
• Turn off your camera when inserting or removing memory cards. Taking the memory card out while the camera is writing to the card could wreck both your card and camera.

Why do we need file formats?

A standard photo taken with a 4.3 megapixel camera has 4.3 million little pixels, or pieces of information, that comprise the image. Each of those pieces needs to store a red, green and blue color value so the color of the pixel can be recreated by a computer or printer. Each color value records the strength of that color on a scale from 1 to 256.

This is a lot of information! Each pixel needs three bytes to store the three color values, and there are 4.3 million pixels. 4.3 million times 3 is around 13 million bytes, or 13 Megabytes.

If each image took 13 Megabytes of storage, you’d run out of space pretty quickly on your memory card! So the file formats used to save images compress the image down to a smaller, more manageable, size.

JPEG

The JPEG, or JPG format was invented to help make image sizes more manageable. JPEG is the most popular format used in digital cameras today because it’s a simple and versatile format, and is supported by all image related software.

JPEG works by compressing the image to a much smaller size at the expense of some image quality. Normally you won’t see any difference because the JPEG format looks at the image and removes only the information that it can recreate by looking at adjacent pixels when the image is displayed again.

You can specify the amount of compression with JPEG images. Your camera will usually have a quality setting – low, medium or high. Low quality increases the JPEG compression, and although your images will be smaller, they won’t look at good.

High Quality Setting

Low Quality Setting (exaggerated for effect)

Uncompressed TIFF

TIFF is another file format popular because while it still compresses the image, it does so in a way to ensure that the full image can always be restored. There’s no loss of image quality. It works in the same way as ZIP files on a computer. They are compressed, but you can always get the original file back.

RAW

Images stored in RAW format are exactly what the camera ‘sees’. There is no processing done by the camera before the image is saved. This is one of the major advantages of RAW.

Remember when I said above that each color value strength is stored on a scale from 1 to 256? Modern cameras can actually detect more than 256 levels of strength. But since the TIFF and JPEG formats don’t allow more than that number, the camera throws the extra information away. The RAW format saves these extra strength levels resulting in a better image with more contrast levels.

There’s another advantage – the camera doesn’t correct for exposure or white balance before it saves in RAW format. Meaning you have ultimate control in manipulating the image in a paint program – so your image looks exactly how you want it to look.

All these advantages come at a cost. RAW images don’t use any compression so they are large files and take a long time to store and copy. Also, there is no single RAW standard for all cameras, so you usually will need to use your camera manufacturer’s software to read the RAW file.

Which format should I use?

While TIFF and RAW do give you superior images, I personally don’t think the hassle of much larger file sizes are worth it unless you have a really high end camera and need to produce really large prints. Or are in a difficult lighting situation. Not only do the images take longer to save, but you need to purchase larger (and more expensive) memory cards; a larger hard drive; and more CDs to back up to.

The JPEG format is the most popular – and it’s not hard to see why. It provides a much smaller image size without losing a lot of quality. I recommend using the JPEG format set to high image quality on your own camera.

Here’s an example that dramatically shows this. Below is an image uploaded to the Digital Photo Forum of a bridge towards the Adriatic Sea.

(C) 2005, Ejla

(C) 2005, Dean Novack

• moving the camera away from eye level. In this case, closer to the ground to accentuate the curve of the bridge
• taking the shot at night to add color, drama and better shadows

With only two differences, you get a much better shot.

There is a difference in camera too. The first shot was taken on an Olympus Point and Shoot camera, whereas the second was taken using a Canon EOS 300D SLR. The SLR camera would have made taking the night shot easier, but the second shot would still have been very possible to take with the Olympus.

It can be that simple. Next time you’re out shooting, try this experiment :

Just after you take a shot, make one change (change the shotting angle, the Depth of Field, the time of day, a camera setting, or something else) and try the shot again. If you have time, repeat this process 3 or 4 times and see if you can get a better image.

Thanks to our Forum member Elja and Dean Novacki for permission to use the images.

Watch out you don’t create a ‘worn spot’ by cleaning your lens the same way each time. Alternate the circular motion with up and down or sideways movements sometimes.

If you can change the lenses on your camera, ensure your camera is off when changing over lenses, and you are in a low dust environment. If dust gets on the ‘image sensor’ of your camera, it will show in all your images. While you can clean the image sensor yourself, I recommend you take your camera into a photo store to be professionally cleaned.

Ensure you protect the other parts of your camera as well. Particularly the Memory Card slot and Battery contacts. Never ever insert anything into the memory card slot that isn’t meant to be there, as you could break the small pins. To keep clean, it’s best to leave a memory card in the slot, or at least keep the cover closed.

If you have a DSLR camera, you normally can’t see the image in the LCD while you are composing the shot, so it’s even more important to check the image after you have taken it.

If your camera can show you a half second freeze of your shot after capture, turn this feature on. The half second will give you enough time to see if the image is well framed, and has the correct exposure or if you need to take another one.

However – beware, as your LCD can lie to you about your photo. It won’t tell you if your image is blurry, or out of focus unless you use a special trick.

Turn off the date stamp on your camera.

Some manufactures give you a feature that can imprint the current date and time onto your image. Or they offer to imprint other stats like the current exposure settings, or shot number.

Turn these off!

You don’t want anything to distract you or your viewer from the subject of your photo.

Modern digital cameras record the time and date the shot was taken anyway in a separate part of the image file. This is called the EXIF information (find out more about EXIF).

However, it is handy to know this information when looking at your prized images years from now. So what I do is have my image printing company stamp the EXIF information (like the time and date the shot was taken) on the back of my photos where it doesn’t detract from your subject.

Take MANY more shots than you think you need, and then erase those that aren’t right.

I took all six photos and deleted all but the last one.

This way, you can just keep the ‘best of the best’. I like to check my shots in my computer at the end of the day and erase those that are blurry, or didn’t turn out great.

If you have a small memory card, you can opt to erase the shots inside your camera. Go back through your most recent photos every half an hour and erase any that don’t make the grade, or you have better versions of. However, as large memory cards can be purchased cheaply these days, I recommend getting one of these instead of erasing your shots in-camera.

Don’t be too zealous with deleting though. Sometimes your ‘not technically perfect’ shots will actually be your best because of an expression on someone’s face. If in doubt, save it. Once it’s deleted, it’s gone forever.

This is also a huge tip when photographing groups. With such a large number of people, there always seems to be someone blinking, or looking the other way. Having a large number of shots means you can pick the best of them to keep.